


Threads of Fate

by Gotcocomilk



Series: Coco Writes Soulmates [7]
Category: Bleach, xxxHoLic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Meetings, M/M, brought to you entirely by the image of Kisuke in Yuuko's clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24389236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gotcocomilk/pseuds/Gotcocomilk
Summary: Kisuke had been alive a long time, and he could recognize the eyes of someone who would shape futures present and past. It was easy to see this tide breaking on the sand.Kurosaki Ichigo would change the world, and Kisuke would watch it happen with smoke and the spun glass of visions.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Series: Coco Writes Soulmates [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1681417
Comments: 21
Kudos: 171
Collections: UraIchi Week 2020





	Threads of Fate

**Author's Note:**

> Restraint? Self control? Never heard of them, sorry. They nice?

The fence beneath his hand was warm, as the afternoon sun was warm, as Ichigo’s heartbeat was warm. It was a bright day, for all that the street was covered by a hundred shadows. It was not a day for dark thoughts, but Ichigo walked with enough spirits across his shoulders to have them anyway. Today’s had been freshly dead, and strong with the kind of sadness that was hard to bear.

Ichigo had shouldered it anyway, as he always did and always would. But it had leeched away as the warmth had leeched into his skin, as the fence had pressed across his palm.

The wood under his fingers was warm, and the ghosts he had dealt with for years were gone.

Ichigo didn’t understand, but he was going to. He was going to see more than he’d ever expected to, but not more than he could handle.

Nothing was out of the reach of Ichigo’s fate. 

The fence was polished too, smooth wood lacquered black and slick. Ichigo’s hand touched it for a heartbeat, for a single spinning moment in the movement of the world, and suddenly it all stopped.

Smoke burned away before a cool wind, but the wood under his fingers was warm.

He was stepping inside the gate before he could think to stop, a path opening before him and a small building glinting in the Karakura sunshine. It was an elegant thing, for all that it was cast in the shadows of the skyscrapers around them. Maybe because it was cast in shadows— they seemed to play across the walls and into the sunlight around him.

Ichigo took a step forward, and hadn’t meant to. He glared at his feet, but they moved again, and again, until he was at the door and his fingers were cold.

It was like there was a flame flickering inside, and nothing Ichigo could do would stop his steps. The shadows swirled closed behind him, even as Ichigo yelped and swore his way into the building.

Whatever had pulled him in had better be prepared, he thought, walking through the quiet of a sliding door. He kept following the tug in his feet, past the bright eyes of two children and the dancing shadows across the walls.

He kept following it, until it had led him to a room where the shadows darted away.

The man sitting there was like nothing Ichigo had seen before. Smoke swirled around him, threading through long strands of hair that glinted gold and warm in flickering light. Ichigo couldn’t tell where the light came from, except that it cast shadows across every surface, and none of them fell as they should have.

He couldn’t tell where the light came from, because his eyes were lingering on the spun silver of the man’s open kimono, on the black lining that slipped off one shoulder and fell away from long legs.

He couldn’t tell where the light came from, because it all fell on smooth skin and sharp eyes.

“It’s damn annoying that you dragged me in here,” he said to the man, and watched smoke shift and shake with laughter. The light shifted too, to catch on long eyelashes and a deadly stare.

The man looked amused, and in all his life Ichigo had never felt more subtle danger. He straightened his shoulders, felt the weight of that gaze try to bend his spine.

Ichigo had never backed down from a challenge in all his life, and he wasn’t going to start now. Not even when the smoke tugged at his clothes, playful and dancing. Not even when the shadows had guided his steps, and the light shifted and shook with each smile.

“Those are such bold words to say to a stranger, but you give me too much credit. I’m only a humble shopkeeper, though of course, devastatingly handsome.”

The man was definitely handsome, Ichigo would give him that. His eyes caught on the long stretch of leg, bare under flickering lights and quietly mesmerizing. His eyes caught on a man that looked like secrets, and smoke that laughed and twirled with life.

Definitely, painfully, handsome.

“Yeah, like it’s not bold at all to be dressed like that as a shopkeeper,” Ichigo said, gesturing a vague hand to the pale legs and bare shoulders. He felt a flush crawl up his face, darker than he wanted it to be.

The wood outside had been warm, like a heart beat under its lacquer. But Ichigo felt hotter here, standing before a man wearing loose clothes and a clever smile.

The silver of that kimono was damningly pretty against smooth skin, laying smooth and terrible. The smile said the man knew it, too, like a cat that had got the cream and all the best fish too. Ichigo felt his fingers twitch, and wondered if the man was as warm as the wood outside.

He didn’t want to be wondering at all, when shadows had led him here.

The man shifted, and the light shifted with him to fall over the ground before Ichigo. The tatami looked strange and haunting, with light that came from nowhere dancing across it.

“My my, was this too much for you? I suppose it is rude of me, greeting a stranger like this. Maybe you should give me your name, so we aren’t strangers any longer.”

“Introduce yourself first,” Ichigo demanded, and watched the smoke swirl away from him for a heartbeat. It seemed to run, as his words echoed over strange lights. He didn’t think about how his words could press onto smooth skin too. He didn’t think at all, beyond the annoyed twitch of his fingers and his glare.

The laugh was surprised this time, light and cheery. It was delighted too, in a way Ichigo hadn’t been ready for.

This man was too damned unpredictable.

“Urahara Kisuke,” the man said, leaning forward to tap the length of a cigarette across the tatami. Ash fell and swirled into nothingness just as fast, dancing up to play with the smoke. The tatami was clean, under the glinting light that never stopped shifting.

Ichigo sighed, and settled down to sit on the floor. This was going to be an annoying conversation, he could tell. But the wood under his hands had been warm, and the ghosts were gone. Ichigo wanted answers, as much as the shadows had swirled around him.

“Kurosaki Ichigo.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“Kurosaki Ichigo, huh? What an interesting soul you have.”

Kisuke watched the man leave, and knew it wouldn’t be the last time he saw those eyes. They had glinted too brightly, and seen too much. They had been warm, even as Kisuke had prodded and teased, even as the burdens of old ghosts swarmed outside the barrier of the shop.

They hadn’t wished for anything but the power to protect, and that was the most interesting thing of all.

They had lingered on Kisuke for too long too, and well, Kisuke would be lying if he said he minded that. Kurosaki was an attractive man, with a soul that shone gold and terrible. Kisuke had been alive a long time, and he could recognize the eyes of someone who would shape futures present and past.

It was easy to see this tide breaking on the sand.

Kurosaki Ichigo would change the world, and Kisuke would watch it happen with smoke and the spun glass of visions.

He would watch, but he wouldn’t know everything. It wasn’t smart to look at his own thread in the weave of fate. Too many things could go wrong, and too many people were tempted to shift and shape the future, when they could see how their failures would fall.

Threads got cut when people grew greedy. Kisuke knew that with the ache of a guilt that never faded, and a long life to bear that wound.

But if he was a betting man, he would have put all the treasures in the shop, and every favor he’d collected over the centuries, on one thing and one thing alone; the silver of Kisuke’s thread was tied to the gold of Kurosaki Ichigo’s.

They were bound together.

He ran his fingers across the wood of his cigarette holder, felt it linger with the warmth of smoke and sparks. There had been fire in this for longer than any one cigarette could last, but that wasn’t an issue.

Kisuke had broken more laws of the world, and he’d shatter a few more before sunset. A flame that never died was nothing, before the weaving threads of fate.

He wondered how tightly his thread was bound to Kurosaki Ichigo’s, and how desperately Kisuke would come to need him.

He wondered many things, sitting in place outside of time and space.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hit me up on [my server](https://discord.gg/7tn2ywb) for prompts and general tomfoolery, and my [twitter](https://twitter.com/gotcocomilk) or [tumblr](https://thehoardofthegreatdragon.tumblr.com) for stupidity. 
> 
> I love hear if I wrote a particularly captivating or interesting line-- feel free to include it in a comment to feed your friendly neighborhood writing monster.


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